Winds whip flames 02-26-2008

Published 6:00 pm, Monday, February 25, 2008

High winds and dry conditions helped fuel two fires in Hale County Monday afternoon.

According to Gary McCormick with Rocket Aviation, wind gusts were steady at 40 mph with gusts to 53 mph.

The biggest fire of the year was started by an 18-wheeler who lost a tire causing sparks to fly on FM 400 and FM 784, about seven miles south of Plainview. That fire was reported to the sheriff's office at 11:57 a.m.

According to Marvin Sistrunk, Hale County special services director, the fire burned approximately 2,500 acres and damaged an abandoned house.

The fire spanned about 2 1/2 miles long and 2 miles wide.

No other structures were lost and Sistrunk said that thanks go to the road graders from Precinct 2 which built fire breaks around the nearby buildings.

Firefighters from Petersburg, Hale Center, Halfway and Abernathy worked to control the blaze until 4:30 p.m.

Another grass fire on FM 1424 near Edmonson started around 2 p.m. and was caused by sparks from an electric line.

The fire burned about 20 acres and was quickly controlled by the Edmonson Fire Department.

No injuries were reported in either fire.

Meanwhile, in Hockley County, a fire burned several large cotton gin moats at Citizens-Shallowater Co-op Gin near the Lubbock County line. Firefighters there kept a constant spray of water on the smoldering cotton moats for hours as rough winds whipped about.

In Odessa, 200 homes were evacuated after a fire that burned about 5,000 acres threatened their homes. They were allowed to return to their homes later in the evening.

Other counties reporting fires in the South Plains, include Andrews, Scurry and Hockley counties.

In Hobbs, N.M., a fast-moving, 40,000-acre grass fire burning to the west, threatened about 100 homes and businesses.

The National Weather Service issued an "extremely critical" fire warning Monday meaning the fire danger was so high that there was an 80 percent chance a spark of any kind would start a wildfire.

Issuing an extremely critical warning is rare since conditions rarely get that bad. However, this is the second warning of the year for Texas.

At least 18 counties reported wildfires to state emergency management officials and 200,000 acres were burned in West and Central Texas.

In the past month wildfires have burned about 100,000 acres and destroyed about 60 homes and other structures. Two years ago, numerous outbreaks scorched 2.25 million acres statewide and killed 20 people.

(The Lubbock Avalanche-Journal and Associated Press contributed to this article.)